Our national saving is less than our domestic investment, and has been the case for decades, our current account is negative (a deficit). This means foreigners are investing more in the United States than we Americans are investing abroad. Our national saving rate has gone from 15 percent to 0 percent. It has cut our domestic investment rate from 15 percent to 4 percent.
The Miami Herald reports that 47 million gallons of raw sewage in two years were dumped into local waters and that nationally there are 247,000 water and sewer main breaks every year. Yet reading the news one would think the real threat to our water was natural gas drilling.
The two presidents between Roosevelt and Kennedy were far more simple men. The sons of poor men, neither owned his own house until after his presidency, and both with farming backgrounds, both Truman and Eisenhower were Americans from a simpler time and place. This is a line from William Miller's book about them called "Two Americans": "Although members of the Lost Generation, neither of them was lost. Although members of their generation engaged in the 'revolt from the village' after the Great War and lived in Paris, neither of these villagers revolted. Neither went to Paris, or to anywhere else in Europe, except when sent there by the army."
So
we have this political system that rewards the attractive, the slick,
the handsome, the well-spoken, the careful and advances them to a
position where they must make substantive decisions on war, the economy
and international affairs. This is like choosing your left offensive
tackle on the basis of his gardening skills.
Over 850,000 people now have top secret security clearance and more than
twelve hundred top secret government organizations exist to help find
and capture terrorists. 1,074 federal government
organizations and nearly two thousand private companies are involved with
programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security, and
intelligence in at least 17,000 locations across the United States - all
of them working at the top secret classification level. The biggest growth had come within the many agencies and large corporations that had existed before the attacks. Of all the top secret units
fighting terrorism after 9/11, a separate organization, the Joint
Special Operations Command, is the single organization that has killed
and captured more al-Qaeda members around the world and destroyed more
of their training camps and safe houses than the rest of the U.S.
government forces combined. JSOC also killed Bin Laden through its Navy
SEAL Team 6. (From "Top Secret America by Priest and Arkin)
In
the world of governmental unintended consequences, foreign policy
rarely comes up in discussion. But in the fifties the U.S. had to make
some decisions about the East, particularly India and Pakistan. India
was leaning towards China so the Americans chose to support Pakistan
with financial and military aid. From Double Game" by Wright: "India has become the state that we tried to create in Pakistan. It is a
rising economic star, militarily powerful and democratic, and it shares
American interests. Pakistan, however, is one of the most anti-American
countries in the world, and a covert sponsor of terrorism. Politically
and economically, it verges on being a failed state. And, despite
Pakistani avowals to the contrary, America's worst enemy..."
In
essence, the State Department built an Edsel. Repercussions? None.
Failed governmental policy is an area where we "Judge not."
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